Check Travel Advisories Before You Travel

TTT 59 - Travel Advisories
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Meggan: Hey everyone, and welcome back to Travel Tip Tuesday with the Travel Mug Podcast in an ever-changing world. Uh, today we wanted to take a few moments and discuss travel advisories. It's not the most fun topic, but I think it's a really important topic. So whether you watch the news or not, we all know there is, you know, stuff happening all over the world all the time and not All of it is good, and some of it could affect your travel plans, whether you realize it or not. and before the end of 2023, I saw a list on the news of travel advisories for Canadians and what we should be aware of. And it got me thinking, do we actually all look at these before booking a trip or starting out on our journey, you know, when the time comes and my deduction is likely, some people are up on advisories, but most people likely don't even think about it. So just as an example, which, you know, some of this could be surprising and some of it of course isn't. But as an example for Canadians right now, at this time of recording, we are advised not at all to travel to as examples, Venezuela, Sudan, and Lebanon plus others.

Those are just a snapshot, like literally at all. do not go. and then the following countries, Canadians should exercise extreme caution if traveling to, which include. Ghana, Zimbabwe, Guinea, and more. And then, right now, we should also exercise a high degree of caution if traveling to places such as Germany, Spain, Vietnam, Mexico, and others. Now, some of the above might surprise you. and they're on the Canadian government website. So what that website allows you to do is actually click in deeper to get what information is there so that you can actually understand the risks and what you should be cautious of. And when you read through the information as I did, just to check things out. Some of the information is just stuff we should always be aware of when we're traveling. Like it's not groundbreaking information, but there is some more serious stuff in there and it does go in depth into that. So it isn't all just like pickpockets and whatever, like some of it is serious stuff.

thankfully there are also a ton of countries that have just Normal precautions, which is really nice to see as well. Now as an example for our American listeners, a few do not travel to destinations for you would include Belarus, Haiti, Iraq, Niger, and Lebanon. Now the above are really just some examples with so much more information that can be found for your particular country online. Some of these places might seem like common sense or we may not typically go there anyway, but there are a few surprises and all of this to say it's incredibly important for us as travelers to start incorporating this into our travel planning. Understand the risks of where you're going before you book. To ensure that you're making smart and safe decisions, and of course, like I mentioned, you can find this information on your government's website and all the advisories will be broken down for you there, including what you should be cautious of. So Jenn, is this something you look into before booking travel, even if it's to seemingly benign locations that no one would think to check for?

Jenn: So. pre 2020, I don't think I had ever looked, and so most regular listeners probably know that I had a kind of multi-country cruise booked in, um, supposed to be March of 2020. And of course, we all know what happened in March of 2020. However, I was waiting for the Canadian government website to put Italy on the do not travel list because of Covid. In order to cancel the cruises in order to get my money back, which is a whole other story because it did not work that way. But anyway, the point is that is how I discovered that there is this list that you can look at and it is something to note when you're doing travel insurance as well. Um, but yeah, it is there and there, there are some surprising locations on there, so everyone should just go, you know, just go check it out, see

Meggan: I agree. I agree. Like there were some surprises. I mean, some things are common sense, and then I was like, whoa on a couple. So even if you think, oh, I'm sure it's fine, why not, why not take a look? It it, it takes, you know, less than five minutes. So it's just something to keep in mind and something you could put on your list of things to do as you're booking your travel. Well, that is it for this week's Travel Tip Tuesday. We hope you have taken something away from this, and we'll add this to your travel planning activities. Until next time, be sure to subscribe to our podcast and our YouTube channel so that you don't miss a thing. Follow us on social media at Travel Mug Podcast. Visit our website for more in-depth content at travelmugpodcast.com. And if you like what we're doing, leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. And until next time, bye.

Jenn: Bye